What is interesting is that although it wasn't McCain's fault, is that someone still kept him on active duty, likely directly attributable to his pedigree. Had they acted, no Hanoi Hilton later. You can't make this stuff up. Even the whiff of involvement in something of that magnitude is a red flag for normal people.
What I mean is you have a reckless youngster prone to pushing boundaries ( okay so far, brash pilot SoP ), who is an Admiral's son ( presumably under more scrutiny than everyone else, or maybe under less! ), but crashes not one, not two, but three planes before getting near Vietnam ( others would surely have been bounced by now, did you read about the one in Spain? )
... then ... on the carrier he is the recipient of the short straw accidentally targeting him out of every other possible plane to take the errant rocket. It's as if God himself gave the commander a perfect reason, ( a fourth chance overall ) to yank him prior to the fateful Hanoi journey. Amazing.
If the story ended for him in Spain ( his fault ) or after that massive loss life onboard ( not his fault ) he never would have went to Hanoi and we would never heard his name again, at least as a war hero that our U.S. Senate just can't do without. America, The Constitution and the Republic itself would be far healthier for it.
So there is a long list of people to blame for a long unbroken chain of events that all had to come together precisely to yield this nasty politician that has made a career crapping on the Constitution he swore to support and defend. Well if he took the oath. Maybe he skipped that day, hungover or something. It happens I guess if you're an Admiral's son.
My Dad was once threatened with court-martial for flying a P-51 down Main Street, below the tops of the surrounding buildings. A year later, he was in Korea. He died flying helicopters in Vietnam.
As a lieutenant, in the 80s, I once told the Wing Commander that if he didn’t want a lieutenant making decisions for him, he needed to come to work in time to make them himself. In the 80s, I got away with it. In today’s military, I probably would not.
The 50s & 60s had a very different standard for crashing planes. It was far more common back then.
And I can remember flying (a WSO) UNDER power lines on several occasions, so I cannot fault someone else for doing so. It happens.
I don’t doubt a bit that his pedigree helped him advance and keep out of trouble. In all the pilots I dealt with in the military, I did not encounter a single one who would intentionally break a rule (within the vision of anyone who could make an issue of it.)
They all followed the NATOPS instructions to the letter when on the ground, taxiing, and taking off.
What they did after that, I have no idea. But it is pretty clear to me McCain was a reckless pilot, and I don’t have a hard time believing that his lineage protected him. Other pilots hate that.
There was a B-52 that crashed a few years ago practicing for an air show, and to a man, all the other pilots disliked and resented his dangerous hot-dogging behavior that eventually got him (and some of them) killed.